Bleak
by NerdyMJ
Summary: Mia Blake wasn't an average teenager. She didn't get the chance to be one. She lived her life for her family. The word "fun" wasn't even in her vocabulary. Then one night, she finds herself pulled into a world of aliens, mutants, and war and the question becomes: Is there a way to save her family from all of it? Contains mentions of drugs. OC. R
1. Chapter 1

Bleak

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

01

Sixteen-year-old Mia Blake stood on the sidewalk outside of Theodore Roosevelt High School. She nodded her head silently, pretending to listen to the conversation taking place between her boyfriend and their friends. She pulled her cellphone out and turned on the music app, shoving her ear-buds in her ears.

"Hey, Mia," said her boyfriend Troy Evans over the sound of the Eurodance music that was now blaring in her ears. "Do you wanna do something tonight?"

Mia looked at him. Troy was cute with messy brown hair, steely blue eyes, and dimples, but lately Mia was beginning to wonder if she had begun to get over him. He was completely irresponsible in a way that would be fun if it didn't mean dodging the principal every other week when she had done nothing wrong. The worst part was, he didn't see the harm in what could happen if she got with his cigarettes in her locker, regardless of how many times she tried to explain it to him. "I can't," she said eventually. "I have things to do."

"Aww, come on, Mia," Troy said, laughing. "You never wanna hang out. You're always busy."

"Yeah," a blond girl named Kate added. "I think the last time I saw you with a beer was, like, two years ago. What's with you?"

Mia frowned as the alarm on her phone went off, silencing the music that had been playing a few seconds earlier. It was ten to three. She smiled apologetically at Troy. "I gotta go pick up my sister. Later." She turned and walked away silently.

Mia's father was in prison with petty theft being the least offensive of his charges. Her mother was only around some of the time and never for very long. She had left just after Mia's younger sister Clara had been born to pursue her dream of being a Broadway actress. After her dad finally got caught, that had left Mia to live with her older sister Janie, and to help raise Clara. So every day after school, she picked Clara up from grade school, helped her with her homework, made dinner, and washed the dishes before Janie came up from her job in the nursing home and went to night school.

She knew what it was like, though, to go out and drink with her friends while rock music blared in the background, and the smell of marijuana seeped out of the bathroom. It was partially because of stuff like that a social worker from CPS came to visit them every couple of months. Mia knew that if she messed up, she could lose Clara and Janie because the things she did effected them, too. She didn't want that to happen, so she decided to focus on her studies and her family, and every time her sister got enough money together to take them to see the new Disney movie at the cinema, Mia was grateful. She didn't want to think about what it would be like if she didn't even have that to look forward to anymore.

There was no point in explaining it to her friends, though. They didn't understand and Troy sure as hell didn't understand. He didn't want to understand and he didn't want to hear about it, either. Mia understood that. She just didn't understand how she was going to explain it to him.

"Excuse me?"

Mia looked up, suddenly finding herself on the front lawn of her sister's school. Had she really walked ten blocks that quickly? She must have.  
Standing across the lawn next to the tall, square brick and mortar building was Clara's teacher, Ms. Kinsey. She was waving Mia over to her and holding Clara tightly by the wrist.

Mia walked over to them. "Yeah?" she asked. "Did she try to wander off again?"

Clara had a bad habit of trying to leave school early. The first time she did it, she said she had left to find her mother. Mia didn't know how to tell her that their mother didn't want Clara to find her. She let Janie handle that one, but it was because of this nasty habit that Clara now had to see the school psychologist once every other week.

Ms. Kinsey shook her head. "No, no, it's not that," she said. "I just need to speak to your sister about Clara. I'm going to need her to come to a parent-teacher conference next week."  
Mia frowned. That didn't sound good. "Oh, okay. I'll tell her."

"Thank you," Ms. Kinsey said, smiling. "I put a letter about it in Clara's bag, but I know how busy your sister can get."

Mia nodded and watched her walk away. She looked down at her sister silently. Clara was seven years old and in the first grade. Like Janie, she had taken after their mother. She had mousy dirty-blond hair and brown eyes, but unlike most kids, she didn't talk much. It was weird because Mia thought kids her age normally never shut up, but Clara just didn't like to talk and when she did talk, it was about things like aliens and monsters. Or their mother.

She had never really opened up much to Mia, though.

"Come on, Clara," Mia said, grabbing her sister's hand and leading her away from the school.

* * *

After they had each finally finished their homework and Clara had fallen asleep on the couch, Mia changed into her night clothes in the bathroom. She put on an oversized pink T-shirt and a pair of white sweatpants. Then she stood silently and stared at herself in the mirror.

Growing up, she had often been told she wasn't pretty like her sisters. She had a square jaw that was framed by long, dark brown hair and hazel eyes. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about her, except for maybe her clear ivory skin. When she was young, it had a bothered her a lot when one of her parents had said it was sad she had taken after her father. Now, she didn't care.

Now, she would spit on her parents if she ever saw them again.

"Mia?"

Mia stepped out of the bathroom and into the living room of the tiny cramped apartment silently to see her sister Janie standing by the door. "Hey," Mia greeted her, watching her kick off her shoes.

Janie frowned at her. "Why isn't Clara in bed?" She gestured to their youngest sister, who was sleeping on the couch.

Mia shrugged. "She fell asleep watching cartoons after dinner. I didn't want to wake her." She nodded at the television.

Janie's frown turned into a scowl. "So now I have to do it," she said, nodding. "Nice."

Mia followed her out of the living room to her bedroom. The apartment they lived in had two bedrooms. Mia shared the master bedroom with Clara and Janie had taken the smallest one for herself. Most of the space in the room was taken up by the bed and dresser, and a small desk next to the window housed a used PC with stolen Wifi.

"I saw Clara's teacher today," Mia said, watching her sister rush about the room, throwing clothes on the floor as she searched for something to wear to school. "She said she wants you to come to a parent-teacher conference."

Janie paused and looked at her in disbelief. "What, when?"

Mia shrugged again. "Sometime next week. She put a letter for you in Clara's bag. That's all she said."  
"Great," Janie said, walking across the room to her dresser. She began digging through it hurriedly. "Just another thing for me to do. I don't suppose you remembered to go to the store?"

Mia's spine suddenly went rigid as realization dawned on her: Today was Wednesday – the day she was supposed to go buy groceries. And she had completely forgotten. "Crap," she said, turning and walking back to the living room. "I totally forgot. I'm gonna run down to the corner market and get what I can before it closes. I'll get the rest of it tomorrow." She grabbed her coat off the hook by the door.

"Just get back soon!" she heard Janie call after her.

* * *

Once she was out on the street, Mia couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. She knew how stressed out Janie was all the time and she knew she hated their parents more than anyone. There had been a reason she had moved out at sixteen and gone to college upstate before she was forced to transfer to NYU. Mia also knew that Janie resented her.

That was why Janie was always so short-tempered and snappish with her, and Mia didn't like it, but what could she do? If she fought with Janie, then the neighbors would complain and the social worker might come for an early visit. That couldn't happen.

So she just had to deal with it.

Halfway down the sidewalk, Mia paused.

The neighborhood they lived in wasn't the greatest. It wasn't the kind where people could leave their front doors unlocked and park bicycles on the street. Mia was aware of the rumors of gang activity in the neighborhood, but no one had ever been caught and there weren't cops circling the block every hour, she had assumed that they were rumors.

Tonight was different, though. Something felt off somehow.

Silently, Mia turned to look down the alley she had stopped in front of. It was something she did on a near daily basis. The alley was two blocks from the low-rise where her apartment was and she passed it on her way to school in the mornings. A lot of the time, she couldn't keep herself from checking it because the people who lived in the apartment building that formed the alley had the cutest little beagle she loved to stop and pet.

Tonight, though, there was no beagle: Standing at the end of the alley were three men. Two of them seemed to be young Asian guys dressed in all black with long, winding tattoos that snaked around their biceps down to their forearms. The other guy seemed to be giving them money for something.

A split-second passed before Mia realized she had walked on in something bad. Something she wasn't supposed to see. She turned and took off running as fast as she could, but it didn't matter – they were faster than she was and they caught her in an instant.

The man who grabbed her was huge. He grabbed her by her arm, twisting it behind her back and slammed her against the alley wall. Her head hit the concrete hard and when she cried out, the man twisted her arm tighter.

"Who are you?!" his partner spat at her.

Mia opened her mouth to speak, but a choked dry sob was all that would come out.

"Well?!" the man demanded. He reached out and pulled out the crowbar that was dangling from his belt loop.

"P-please!" Mia managed to say finally. "You don't wanna do this – I live around here. People will notice – they'll talk!"

The big guy who was holding, reached out and ran his greasy finger along the length of her chin. "Really?" he said, exchanging a look with his partner.

"In that case," the man with the crowbar said, "we'll use you to send a message."


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT.

A/N: I just wanted apologize for the formatting issues with the first chapter. I edited it badly and I take full responsibility if that caused the readability to drop. I will be sure to do a better job with future chapters and updates.  
I'm really sorry about that and I'll be sure not to mess up like that again.

02

It was just past nine O'clock. The New York City air, ever thick with pollution, had an icy bite to it. Snow clouds were moving in on the city from the north, blocking out the night's waning crescent. Luckily, though, ninja didn't care too much about snow.

The turtles ran in tight formation with Leonardo and Donatello up in front, and Michelangelo and Raphael bringing up the rear. They moved swiftly from one rooftop to the next, pausing momentarily at the sight of anything suspicious. One by one they leapt through the air and landed on the roof of a tall building with several tall, black chimneys jutting high into the air. It seemed to be an industrial bakery or a bread factory, judging by the sign, which dominated the southernmost portion of the roof. As they ran to the edge of the rooftop and came to a rest, using the sign for cover, Raphael couldn't keep from groaning as a new song began to blare from Mikey's headphones.

Catching sight of his expression, Michelangelo grinned at him. "Dude," he said, "you've got to learn chillax and enjoy the music. A few tunes never hurt nobody." He danced in time to the raucous rap music that was playing on his T-phone.

Raphael reached out and snatched the phone from him, headphones and all. "We are supposed to be ninja," he said, scowling at his little brother. He muted the volume on the phone. "Don't the words silent yet deadly mean anything to you?"

"Dude," Michelangelo said, reaching out to take the phone back, but Raphael held it out high out of his reach. "That is so gross!"

Suddenly, a slither-thin, silver blade intersected the air between them, knocked the phone from Raph's hand, and sent it flying to the ground below.  
"Hey!" Michelangelo said, looking longingly at the streets below. "My T-phone – nice going, Raph!" He scowled at his brother.

"Don't look at me," Raphael said, scowling. He crossed his arms and turned to look at their eldest brother. "I didn't throw the stupid thing off the roof."

Leonardo sheathed his sword with a sigh. "Do you have any idea how much noise you guys were making?" he said. "You were going to blow our cover."

"So you destroyed my T-phone?!" Michelangelo demanded angrily, looking at him.

Raphael pulled his fingers out of his ears. "Cover?" he said. "With him – you're kidding me, right?" He gestured to their youngest brother, who stared back at him indignantly. "Besides, it's not like the whole world doesn't already know about mutants – they televised an alien invasion, Leo!"

"Not everyone knows, Raph," Donatello corrected him before Leonardo had a chance to respond. "That news report was pulled from the air pretty quickly once the invasion was over, and if you try searching for the subject now..." His voice trailed off as he typed away on his T-phone. "All you find are a bunch of blogs by people who just ramble on about conspiracy theories and junk like that. Most of them sound like absolute nutjobs, so their credibility is pretty much right out the window." He held his phone up to show Raph the list of various blogs the search had turned up.

Raphael scowled at the screen silently. He just had to open his mouth. He just had to.

"Exactly," Leonardo said, nodding. "The media is doing it's best to cover up everything it can about mutants and aliens, and there hasn't been a single legitimate report made about us or the Shredder. That means we still have a cover to keep from blowing."

"I still don't understand why that means you had to destroy my T-phone!" Michelangelo said, pushing Leo lightly. "You just couldn't stand me jamming to my jams, could you, bro? You just couldn't take it!" Then he fell to the ground when his brother sidestepped him easily.

"Look, just forget the phone, alright?" he said, looking down at Mikey. "Donnie will build you a new one as soon as we get back down to the lair."

"How about we all forget the phone and explain what the heck we're doing here!" Raphael said exasperatedly. "Other than," he added quickly, turning to face Leonardo, "_trying _not to blow our cover. I mean, seriously, this is way out of Foot territory – heck, I'm not even sure I've been to this part of the city. And I've been everywhere in this city!" He gestured to the area around them with a wave of his sai.

"That's why we're here, Raph," Donatello said. He began typing on his phone again quite rapidly. "Territory. A new survey indicates that there's been an increase in gang violence in this area, particularly among our old friends the Purple Dragons."

Raphael raised his eyebrows at him. "The Dragons?" he said. "But they operate on the other side of the city. What the heck would they be doing down here?"

"Think about it, Raph," Leonardo said. "The Purple Dragons are in an alliance with Shredder, who is looking for members for his new and improved Foot Clan – "

Raphael caught on immediately. "And this is uncharted territory," he said, finishing his brother's thought. "The Shredder gets new meat for the Foot and the Dragons get new turf to terrorize. It's a win-win for those guys."

Then they all froze as an ear-shattering scream cut through the air.

* * *

Mia didn't know much about fighting, and what she did know was barely enough to keep her alive in actual fight. The giant held her tight with her arms behind her back as the crowbar collided with her skull. Then she found herself on the ground and the giant was in the fun now, too, as he kicked her hard in the abdomen. Instinctively, she curled up into a ball on the ground and tried to ignore the feeling of blood on her face.

The blows just kept coming and coming. Her head, her back, her arms – every part of her body ached. There was a brief pause in which she lay on the concrete floor of the alley coughing, trying to catch her breath, and managed to get onto all fours. Then the crowbar hit her again and sent her crashing back into the ground.

She couldn't believe this was happening. Not that it was really all that unbelievable. New York was a dangerous city – anyone could have told you that, but Mia had lived here for years. Since she had moved in with her sisters, she had always kept her head down and her nose clean, and now here she was – in front of her neighbors' apartment building, for God's sake. She was so close to home. She knew she could get back there if she just ran hard enough. If she just moved a little bit faster, then she could warn Janie so she could protect Clara.

Then Mia was up on her feet as adrenaline coursed through her veins. She pushed past the thug with the crowbar and took off running. His partner grabbed her immediately and Mia elbowed him hard in the face. He dropped her and she fell to the ground, scraping her knees on the concrete. She jumped to feet and started running again.

"Get back here!" the giant shouted. "I'm not finished with you!"

Then Mia heard the sound of gunshots exploding off the alley walls. The sensation was instantaneous: Pain exploded through her as fire was set to her calf. Mia was on the ground instantly with tears streaming down her face and blood in her eyes. Her body rocked with pain and her breath came in short, choked sobs. The adrenaline was gone now. Now, all she could feel was pain - white hot, searing pain.

Then, suddenly, a scream filled the air.

Black smoke erupted up and down the alley, blinding Mia. Not knowing what else to do, she buried her face in the ground, trying not to breathe in the smoke in case it was toxic. Battle cries echoed off the alley walls and there was a lot of whooping and clanging. Then there was the sound of sirens.

The sounds of men screaming cut off the sirens, which were still some distance away. Then the smoke began to clear, but her head was pounding, her leg was on fire, and her eyes were watering from the smoke. What was she seeing – this couldn't be real, could it?

She had to have been hallucinating, right?

* * *

Raphael dropped down onto the alley floor from the fire escape of the apartment building. The two Purple Dragons lay on the ground, unconscious, but he wasn't worried about them. He didn't give a crap about what them happened to them. He began to approach the girl that the two Dragons had been attacking. "Hey, kid," he said. "Kid, are you alright?"

The girl stared up at him, her eyes obscured by the pool of blood that flowed from the open wound at the base of her skull. Her brown hair was matted with blood and dirt. She sat shaking, sobbing, on the ground with her hands wrapped around the base of her leg where blood oozed out of a small circular wound.

"Raph," Leonardo said cautiously. "We need to leave, Raph."

"Leo," Donatello said conflict present in his voice. "That girl is hurt really bad. We could –"

"We _could _let the police deal with it, Donnie," Leonardo said, cutting him off.

"Yeah but what if –" Donatello said.

"Would you guys shut up?!" Raphael said, looking back at his brothers. He turned back to the girl, whose eyes were now darting wildly from one turtle to the next. "Kid," he said again. "Are you alright, kid – can you tell us your name?"

The girl's eyes settled on Raphael once again, huge and terrified. "T-tal–" she choked out. "Talk...t-turtle..." Her voice trailed off.

The sirens were closer now.

"Raphael!" Leonardo said firmly. "She needs a doctor. We can't help her."

"But won't, like, a doctor think she's totally crazy?" Michelangelo asked.

"Mikey's right," Donatello said, nodding. "If she tells someone about us – especially a doctor – she could get sent to a psyche ward."

Leo turned away from them and leapt back up onto the fire escape. "That," he said with a somewhat pained look on his face. "That's not our problem." He continued up the fire escape silently.

The others looked from the Raphael to the girl and back again before they began retreating slowly back towards the escape.

Raphael scowled at them over his shoulder. Then, as the sirens grew ever closer, he unclipped his T-phone from his belt and bent down silently.

"D-don't touch me!" the girl cried suddenly, cringing away from him violently. "Don't touch me. Please, don't...Touch..."

Shocked, Raphael pulled away from her, frowning. It wasn't all that surprising that she would react that way, especially given all that she had been through, but it had shocked him because it was the first coherent thing she'd said to him. Until then, he'd thought she was too shaken up to make sense of anything.

Raphael shook his head and said, "If you never need us for anything, don't be afraid to call. We won't hurt you, kid." He dropped the T-phone at her feet just as the cop car came to a halt outside the alley.


End file.
